


keep the light on (a little longer)

by presumenothing (justjoy)



Series: fma fics [8]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: (familiarity with wtnv not necessary but beneficial), (offscreen mentions of multiple characters), (or a variation thereof), Alternate Universe - Welcome to Night Vale Setting, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26664700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justjoy/pseuds/presumenothing
Summary: “AFRIENDLY EASTERN TOWNwhere the stars are beautiful, the fields always green, and strange lights arc overhead while we all pretend to sleep.“Welcome to Resembool.”“TO START THINGS OFF,I’ve been asked to read this stern reminder from Old Woman Pinako. The reminder is that everyone having an automail part, or requiring one to be made, should head down to the corner of Earl and Somerset, where Rockbell Automail will be temporarily setting up shop for three days starting tomorrow to better serve those unable to go out near the car lot.”A community radio broadcast, among other things.
Series: fma fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882300
Comments: 22
Kudos: 84
Collections: Clever Crossovers & Fantastic Fusions





	1. episode one – pilot

**Author's Note:**

> you don't really need to know wtnv to read this (.....probably?), especially since the author still hasn't caught up to it either, but you may appreciate it better if you do

“A FRIENDLY EASTERN TOWN where the stars are beautiful, the fields always green, and strange lights arc overhead while we all pretend to sleep.

“Welcome to Resembool.”

“TO START THINGS OFF, I’ve been asked to read this stern reminder from Old Woman Pinako. The reminder is that everyone having an automail part, or requiring one to be made, should head down to the corner of Earl and Somerset, where Rockbell Automail will be temporarily setting up shop for three days starting tomorrow to better serve those unable to go out near the car lot.”

“THOUGH I SUPPOSE it’s not very stern when I put it like that. What she actually said to me was _you’d better read this announcement and then come down yourself, Alphonse Elric, my granddaughter didn’t build that for you just so you could ruin it with insufficient maintenance!_

“Then again, I imagine I might be the only one she speaks like that to.

“…well, me and my brother, more probably. It’s been long enough that I don’t quite remember for sure, but perhaps the younger Miss Rockbell says the same things to him, wherever they are now. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“AT ANY RATE, the custom is expected to be good, given the high incidence of missing limbs and other organs in this town. So do go early if you can, and if you require any unusually specific customisations, do let Old Woman Pinako know beforehand. She’s at Rockbell Automail, out near the car lot.

“And now, the news.”

“SOME NEW PEOPLE came into town today – a man and woman, dressed in blue as crisp as their military bearing. Who are they? Why have they come here? Why now? And just what is this East Command they claim to be from?

“I don’t know about you, listeners: we _are_ unmistakably in the east, I’ll grant that for sure, but I don’t believe any of us have heard of a command besides the Sheriff. I did not receive any comment from the Sheriff’s Secret Police when I reached out to them by wondering aloud about this to a vacant room, so I suppose we shall have to wait and see.”

“THE MAN SAYS MANY THINGS. He says that they are merely on a surveillance mission, and not to overly mind their presence here. He says the train ride here was terribly long, and awfully dreary besides. He says he is an alchemist.

“Well. We have _all_ been alchemists at one point or another in our lives.

“…is what I’d like to say, but we know better than that. Alchemy hasn’t worked right in this town for a long time. I wonder when he will find out. If he will.”

“THE WOMAN SAYS NOTHING AT ALL. She stands silent at his side, road dust a fine miasma over them both, yet her stance is not weary but wary.

“I wonder if she knows what she is wary of. Perhaps she is wary of everything and therefore nothing in particular, a concern hanging aware but unknown in vacuum.

“Even so – she is not incorrect to be wary anyway. This, at least, I imagine they will find out soon enough.”

“DURING THE BREAK EARLIER, I received yet another communiqué, this time from the Faceless One Who Secretly Lives In Your Home.

“I know it was from them, because its delivery was accompanied by the sight of something – no, some _one_ out the corner of my eye, just a little too far out of sight to discern whether they truly don’t have a face, or if it’s just flickering and shifting too quickly between a dozen different countenances to give the same impression anyway.

“To be fair, I also know they sent it because they then threatened to stop keeping an eye on my cats if I didn’t read this out verbatim on air. …I don’t understand why people can’t seem to deliver anything to me without some amount of implied violence, but I can neither leave my cats unsupervised nor bring them to work with me, so I’m left with no choice but to read this aloud.”

“HERE, THEN, is the statement from the Faceless One Who Secretly Lives In Your Home:

> Humans. Do you even realise how easily manipulated you are? You and your messy, complicated, _unsightly_ emotions. Desiring companionship even as you push other humans away. Claiming that you want the truth while pulling the wool over your own eyes with your own hands. Weak! _That’s_ what you are! Each and every one of you – I could wear a face that’d bring you to your knees and destroy everything you are, and I wouldn’t even break a sweat! It’s ridiculous. The lot of you disgust me.

“AND THERE YOU HAVE IT – oh. No, sorry, I just flipped the page over to check and there’s a postscript on the back. _Also, will you get a full-length mirror already!?_ , it says, with both the exclamation and question marks included, and a short scrawl beneath.

“It says _Envy_ , as far as I can decipher. A signature, perhaps? At any rate, I don’t have any use for mirrors myself, but I’ll be stopping by to get one anyway. For the welfare of my cats, you understand.”

“IN THE MEANTIME: an update on the newcomers to our town, who we now know are named – or perhaps _code_ named – Mustang and Hawkeye.

“While searching for a base of operations to conduct the surveillance mission that we need not concern ourselves about, they stopped by the town hall. Or, more specifically, the small library attached to it that also doubles as the archive of our town’s records.”

“NOW, AS ANYONE WHO HAS EXPERIENCED even the most passing interest in books will know, this was an ill-advised move that could’ve really ended quite terribly. Fortunately or otherwise, they happened to arrive when Sheska – you know, the archivist? – was on duty, instead of any of the other… far more _voracious_ librarians, shall we say.

“Of course, this necessarily meant that there was a fair bit of politely but repeatedly ringing the counter bell before Sheska emerged from the depths of the bookshelves to answer their queries. But soon enough she was laying out town maps atop the largest of the reading tables, apparently unbothered by the deep gouges in its wooden surface.

 _“That’s odd,_ said Hawkeye, silently, tapping on an empty spot on the map with a surprisingly eloquent tilt of her eyebrow, _I distinctly recall seeing a house here when we were surveying earlier._

 _“Huh,_ agreed Mustang, aloud, leaning over for a look before straightening with a smile. _You said this was the latest map of the town, Miss Sheska? From just months ago?_ "

“I AM UNCERTAIN what Sheska’s answer was, but safe to say it was almost definitely in the affirmative. I have never known her to err in anything she could read, and that includes the time when my brother and I had to ask her to write out the entire symbology table of an alchemical research treatise that we had tried and failed on six separate occasions to temporarily liberate from the librarians’ grasp.

“What I _do_ know, on the other hand, is the whereabouts of the cartographical oddity that our eagle-eyed arrivals have found. The house in question is located at –

“…no. No, this can’t be right.”

“I’M SORRY, LISTENERS, but I have to go. I have to go _now_.

“I’ll be back after the [weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldAp-mZqAro), I just need to–

* * *

“WELCOME BACK, listeners.

“On my return, Sciezka – you remember, the receptionist? – informed me that the station had received quite a number of concerned calls following my abrupt departure. That was rather unprofessional of me, and I apologise if I have unduly alarmed any of you, but I am fine.

“As for the caller who was enquiring about the price for a bulk purchase of ground beef… I believe you may have gotten the wrong number for Curtis Butchers? Check and dial again tomorrow, they’re probably closing up at this hour.”

“AND FINALLY: the house missing from the map. 

“I think I speak for us all when I say that we are a tight-knit community here in Resembool, and none of us are strangers to each other nor to the land. And yet I could not tell you a single thing about the path I took from here to that house, or anyone I might have seen along the way. But I had to check for myself. I had to know.

“What I saw was impossible.”

“YOU SEE, THE HOUSE ISN’T ON THE MAP because it doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t exist because we burned it down years ago. We set it alight ourselves, watched the blaze burn down to charred beams and then ashes, a heat so tangible that even I imagined I could feel it seared into every plate of the armour. And I have seen for myself that the land has remained empty since, with only the shadows of the night filling in for what once stood there, when I forgo pretending sleep in favour of walking.

“Yet today I _saw_ it standing there: the house that doesn’t exist. The Elric house, standing where it once always did atop the last hill before the car lot, out at the edge of town.

“I went no closer than the end of the driveway, nowhere near enough to see through the windows or knock on the door. Which outcome would be worse, if I had – for someone to answer, or not? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.”

“DO NOT APPROACH THE HOUSE. I do not know what it means, that our once-home has apparently reappeared as it once was, white walls and red roof and all.

“I cannot even begin to guess, but I am… uneasy, listeners. Afraid, even, for all that I don’t currently have a heartbeat to quicken or any of the other physiology to express it.

“Perhaps tomorrow the house will have disappeared once again, as it should, but only the dawn will tell, and I still need to get word to my brother either way.”

“STAY TUNED NEXT for twelve variations on the metallic rattle of apprehension, overlaid upon the low hum of sleeplessness. 

“Good night, Resembool. Good night.”

* * *

* * *

> **TODAY’S PROVERB:**
> 
> Water, carbon, ammonia, lime, phosphorus, salt, and twenty other constituents: this is the sum total of what makes a person.
> 
> What makes us human is another thing altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I hope that we all find something – or someone – that can keep the light on a little longer against the endless pressing dark. And in the meantime, I take you now to the weather._
> 
> –Welcome to Night Vale, Episode 50: Capital Campaign
> 
> * * *
> 
> what is this, you ask. what's going on?? i don't know!!! i really don't!!
> 
> for the record, the weather was “shout” by tears for fears because my musical knowledge is unironically half-stuck in the 80s.
> 
> fun fact: the sheskas crop up everywhere there is a job needing someone with very good memory (one of them works in the barista district and has everyone's favourite drink order memorised) and they WILL know if you're saying their name spelt wrong. [also this](https://presumenothing.tumblr.com/post/630023229567893504)


	2. episode two – a story about someone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “NO, COME BACK, said the spider to the fly, but we all know how the rest of that story goes.
> 
> “Welcome to Resembool.”
> 
> “TODAY, THERE IS THIS: a story about someone.
> 
> “This information is less helpful than you might think. All stories are about someone, in the singular or plural or uncountable. It’s what makes them stories, instead of disparate collections of facts and events loosely coiled about some narrative anchor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY INAUGURAL FMA DAY TO ME have another episode of this!! whatever this is!!

“NO, COME BACK, said the spider to the fly, but we all know how the rest of that story goes.

“Welcome to Resembool.”

“TODAY, THERE IS THIS: a story about someone.

“This information is less helpful than you might think. _All_ stories are about someone, in the singular or plural or uncountable. It’s what makes them stories, instead of disparate collections of facts and events loosely coiled about some narrative anchor.”

“HERE, THEN, are the particular someones this story concerns itself with – a man who is not large, and a man who is not small.

“Of course, this is only one way of describing them, and not even the one most people might use. Truth is not often equivalent to relevance, but for the purposes of this story it is close enough anyway.

“The man who is not large sits at a desk with a phone. The scene is not much different to anyone else sitting at a desk with a phone, and indeed not much different from his usual behaviour at all, except that he is frowning.

“This is, in turn, because his calls are not getting through.”

“AT THIS MOMENT, the man who is not small arrives. There is very little in common in the way of physical appearance between these two men, save for the possibility that if you ignore everything else about the situation, you might quite understandably think that both of their faces are made for smiling.

“Neither one is smiling now. The man who is not small crouches a little when entering the room, as some people who are not small are wont to do. _No luck, sir?_ he asks.

“ _No luck,_ the man who is not large agrees, but not in a way that is frustrated.

“Or rather – it is true that he _is_ frustrated, but that is not the most relevant thing. He taps his fingers, looks to the ceiling, and thinks.”

“WE CUT BRIEFLY AWAY from this story to the community classifieds.

“Item: Curtis Butchers is looking to hire an additional staff. The job requires comfort around cleavers and other large knives, but not butchery experience since you _will_ find yourself learning rapidly on the job, and anyway that’s the easy part. What’s the hard part? Wouldn’t you like to know. To apply, head down to the store and challenge one person to arm wrestling. Who you choose will be the first part of your interview. Good luck!

“Item: Ice-cream truck found in the parking lot of Dark Owl Records, vacant but in good condition. If this is yours, contact Rebecca Catalina, owner of Dark Owl Records. If this is _not_ yours, but you are interested, maybe contact her anyway. She has some interesting ideas about a joint venture of sorts.”

“AND FINALLY – item: Base to Phoenix, town square, ten o’clock. That’s… literally all this last sheet of paper says. No clue what that’s about, but doubtless the recipient must have understood the message anyway.

“This has been the community classifieds.”

“AND NOW, WE RETURN TO the story at hand.

“ _…so I figured it was worth a try,_ the man who is not large is saying to the man who is not small. _I have a theory that– never mind, we’ll know if it’s true or not based on how this pans out._

“The man who is not small does not say anything aloud in response to this statement. The contemplative silence is uncharacteristic of him, or at least how people usually perceive him, but then again everything they are doing now is uncharacteristic of how people usually perceive them.”

“PERCEPTION, AS IT HAPPENS, can often be neither relevant nor true.

“ _He’s going to kill me if this actually goes through,_ the man who is not large remarks, in a manner all too cavalier for such a comment. _Ringing him up just to talk his ear off._

“ _That didn’t stop you before,_ the man who is not small observes.

“The man who is not large laughs. _It really hasn’t, yeah. But who wouldn’t be happy to hear my dulcet tones? Or, more importantly… the news of my beloved wife and lovely daughter!_ ”

“THE MAN WHO IS NOT SMALL studies the stack of photographs that have been thrust in his face. _She really is growing up well,_ he says, and this impression at least is true if not particularly relevant.

“Although it is _very_ relevant to the man who is not large, judging by the breadth of his grin. _You’re a good man, Major. Ever consider having kids yourself?_ ”

“LET’S PAUSE HERE AND TAKE A LOOK at traffic.

“There is a woman. We will call her Emma, and I won’t tell you if that is her real name – or more accurately I _can’t_ , for reasons that will soon become clear.

“Emma came to this town just over two years ago, bringing only her daughter with her. Old Woman Pinako, smoking a pipe on her porch near the car lot, would see her arrival and think privately that it seemed more like a fleeing.

“Then she would extinguish her pipe and come forward to offer assistance anyway. They would not form any kind of instant trust, because Old Woman Pinako had been right in her guess, but both are practical women, in the way that you tended to get when you are adjacent to someone who practices alchemy.”

“BUT THAT WAS THE PAST. This is now.

“Now, Emma listens to the radio, hears about the newcomers to town, and worries. Her daughter is older, now, and I will tell you nothing about her either, besides that she has brown braids and blue eyes and a smile like the sun. Sometimes, she plays happily with the dog that welcomes her at Rockbell Automail, like Den reminds her of a family pet she was too young to remember.

“Sometimes, out the corner of Emma’s eye, her daughter bears a different form, like she is not sure what shape she should have when no one is looking. Sometimes it reminds her of the shadowed shapes she saw in the basement lab, the ones her husband only smiled about when she asked, scared and desperate and furious: _you did this? Is this also what you’re planning to do to me, to N–_

“And so Emma wonders if she got them away from her husband quickly enough, and worries if the newcomers are looking to bring her back. If they suspect what her husband, the alchemist, had been trying to do.”

“THE GENERAL ANSWER TO ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS is that she did what she had to, and will continue to do so. The specific answers are yes, probably no, and no.

“The real answer is that none of these answers will be enough to reassure her, but at least they might help.

“This has been traffic. And now, the [weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56hqrlQxMMI).”

* * *

“SO THAT’S THE WEATHER FORECAST FOR this coming week, but perhaps there was something you were more keen to hear about. A phone call, perhaps.

“Alas, listeners, I’m afraid I don’t much news for you on that front. You see, there are municipal regulations requiring enclosed booths around payphones to prevent undue weather damage to the equipment. As such, when the phone in the town square rang at ten, and a man stopped to answer it, there was a door he could pull closed behind him.

“However, the regulations say nothing about making the booth proof against eavesdropping, only rain, and so some parts of his words still drifted out anyway, stolen snatches of half a conversation: _why did we let you choose the codenames?_ and _yes, Eagle is fine, just itching to shoot something_ and _I’ll report in as soon as I have something to–_

“THIS LAST PART is said with forehead pressed against glass, eyes scanning the darkened streets outside, and presumably this is related to the way he stops suddenly, mid-sentence. A hurried murmur, too low to even guess at, and then he is hanging up and stepping out, pushing the door open.

“ _Who’s there?_ the man asks, measured in the way of someone who expects to be answered, and the words do not hang suspended in the night for long before a figure steps out of the shadows, hood drawn down around his shoulders.”

“THE MAN’S STANCE changes completely: he stiffens, and his tone is no longer measured when he says _Marcoh? What are_ you _doing here?_

“ _It’s Mauro,_ the Sheriff replies, pulling his customary hood back up, _and I could ask you the same thing, Lieutenant Colonel._

“ _It’s Colonel, actually,_ the man corrects, but not in a way that is actually meant to be a correction. _I told everyone when we first arrived, it’s just for surveillance._

“The Sheriff says nothing, but the silence is loud enough anyway: that answer was unacceptable, try again.

“ _They’re planning something, and this town is standing in their way. Either it submits, or– you know what they’ll do. I can’t let that happen again,_ he finishes with an urgency that makes the words sound true, and relevant, and completely opaque to anyone else.”

“BUT THAT IS ONLY TO BE EXPECTED. This has been a story about someone, after all, none of which are us, and just because something is true and relevant to you does not guarantee that you will understand it at all.

“Stay tuned next for the crackling jingle of a blue truck parked by a records store, and the worried weight of a mother tucking her daughter in while wondering what will come tomorrow.

“Good night, Resembool. Good night.”

* * *

* * *

> **TODAY’S PROVERB:**
> 
> There are many things in this world worth an arm and a leg. If it’s not your own, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i’m celebrating this day by putting out 100% self-indulgent content that is only borderline recognisable as fma because i can!! the "a story about…" episodes have always been fascinating to me so it was an easy pick when i thought about which episode i wanted to do next, although the entire premise of it does basically require that the voice sorta go full on cecil to narrate it. sorry al??
> 
> this also serves as a somewhat nonstandard fill to the first five [fictober prompts](https://fictober-event.tumblr.com/post/628547358001594368/fictober-event-the-prompts-for-2020), one for each section of the episode: “no, come back!”, “that’s the easy part”, “you did this?”, “that didn’t stop you before”, and “unacceptable, try again”. i had to contort pretzels around myself putting some of them in, but it was a fun challenge anyway
> 
> this episode’s weather (which is arbitrarily decided by which 80s song is currently stuck in my head) was “eye in the sky” by the alan parsons project
> 
> characters introduced this episode, for those keeping score at home: maes as the man who is not large (who codenamed roy and riza as phoenix and eagle respectively for this op), alex as the man who is not small, curtis butchers as big rico’s, rebecca catalina as michelle nguyen, ex-mrs tucker pseudonym emma and nina as alive and well because to hell with shou tucker, and last but not least – marcoh as the sheriff of night vale, just because

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] keep the light on (a little longer)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27059713) by [Angel_Bazethiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angel_Bazethiel/pseuds/Angel_Bazethiel)




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